All-Time Yankee 25-Man Squad

The New York Yankees have more World Series Championships than any other team in any sport.  They have more former members in the Baseball Hall of Fame than any other team, have had twenty players win the Most Valuable Player Award and five Cy Young Award winners. 

Eight Yankees have been named Rookie of the Year. 

Twenty-three Yankees have won batting titles. 

Twenty-eight times players wearing Yankee pinstripes won the home run championship.

Babe Ruth held the one year record for home runs until 1961 when Roger Maris, another Yankee, broke it. 

Ruth held the career home run record until 1975 when Hank Aaron exceeded the Babe.

There is a good chance another Yankee, Alex Rodriguez will eventually bring that title back to NYC.

Yankee pitchers have thrown twelve no-hitters including three perfect games and the only perfect game in World Series History.  Fourteen times Yankees hurlers led the league in ERA and seven times pitchers from the Bronx were strikeout champions.

Any attempt to pick an all-time Yankees team is bound to generate argument.  So here we go, I will give you my all-time 25 man squad and you can tell me why I'm all wet.

Starting Pitchers

Whitey Ford, Ron Guidry, Lefty Gomez, Bob Shawkey, Roger Clemens.  (Heavy on lefties, but there are three great lefties here and you always wanted to use a lefty in the Stadium if you could.)

Relief Pitchers

Mariano Rivera, Goose Gossage, Sparky Lyle, Luis Arroyo, Joe Page, Dave Righetti.  (What Yankees fans would give to have this bunch to set Mo up for the ninth.)

Catchers

Yogi Berra, Thurman Munson  (You could also think about Bill Dickey and Ellie Howard, but these two catchers were the best the Yankees have every had.)

First Base

Lou Gehrig, Don Mattingly (Not only two great players, but two great men and great teammates.)

Second Base

Tony Lazzeri  (From the Ruth era, but boy could he play and what a hitter.)

Shortstop

Derek Jeter (The best the Yankees have ever had, and believe me, I hated to have to leave Scooter off this list.)

Third Base

Alex Rodriguez (Maybe the greatest to ever play the game at any position.)

Reserve Infielders

Willie Randolph, Gil McDougald (Willie only hit .276 for his career but he was much more valuable.  McDougald is here because he could play every position in the infield.  And Billy Martin had to be considered.  In a few years, maybe Cano will make this list.)

Outfielders

Babe Ruth, Joe Dimaggio, Mickey Mantle (There can't be any serious argument about this.)

Reserve Outfielders

Paul O'Neill, Earl Combs (Paulie has to be here because of what he meant to all the fans of the last fifteen years and Earl Combs was simply great, at bat and in the field.)

Manager 

Joe McCarthy (Better than Casey, but not by a whole lot.  And better than Torre for those of you again who can't remember before 1995.)

Coaches

Billy Martin, Ralph Houk, Frank Crosetti, Bill Dickey  (Again some names that you may not know, but Crow was a fixture along the third base line for decades and Bill Dickey is the fellow who taught Yogi how to catch.)

There it is.  Tear it apart.  Tell me why I'm crazy.  Tell me that you can't compare the players of the dead ball era. 

But before you do, go back and look at the stats.  Some of you are going to say, "Who in the world is Earl Combs?" "Who is Tony Lazzeri, and why did he make your team ahead of Bobby Richardson?"  Go back and check 'em out.  These were great players.